


The Problem With Literature

by AntivanCrafts



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Other, also anira is canonically nb, just in case you may be reading lavellan as demisexual?, preferring she/her and they/them, yes this is word of god confirming that there is an ace of hearts all up in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntivanCrafts/pseuds/AntivanCrafts
Summary: Anira Lavellan has just finished reciting poetry to Cassandra Pentaghast and is regretting very very many life choices, if not precisely this one.





	

Anira Lavellan drew in such a swift gulp of air as she hid her face behind Varric's latest book that she made a noise halfway between a squeak and a yelp. She felt her face grow hot, even more than it had already been at reciting from it aloud. Her brows, already arched in a permanently concerned expression, pinched together as she gently slapped herself with the book. "Can we just... pretend I didn't say that?" She whispered, her throat knotted up in an agony of embarrassment.  
  
She went rigid when she heard Cassandra close the distance between them and gently move the book down so that her bare fingers gently brushed against Anira's. "No," she said, and it was as simple and as complicated as that. No. Anira stared up at her breathlessly. As was always the case, all of her usual confidence and poise, such as they were, completely drained away when she was before Cassandra. Words, gone. Intentions? What were those?  
  
"No?" She mouthed, almost silent except for the rasp of breath upon the exhale, then recovered enough to try for the beginnings of a smile. She'd left her hair unbound tonight, for reasons she hadn't really been able to articulate even to herself but that had left her breathing quickly and half dancing in place. The idea had been for it to be a long, glossy wave that danced over her shoulders like the heroine's hair always did in the stories in this very book, the ones that Cassandra had read to her on long nights on the trail and that Anira had very carefully spelled out to her in return as she learned to read the common tongue, but, as usual, her plans hadn't exactly come to fruition. Her hair, too grey and too thick by half, had instantly frizzed out in a cloud despite the oils and grease she'd applied to it.  
  
Cassandra, however, didn't seem to mind, not if one was to judge by the softening angles of her mouth as she drew her hand up through Anira's hair and down to cup the back of her head, just in that place the hero always did in the book, but this, this was so much better. No hero had ever made her heart leap behind her ribs the way her heroine did now, just as, Cassandra whispered into her hair, "No one turns me around sideways the way you do."  
  
Anira blinked and started, eyes flying open wide where they had fluttered half closed to stare in shock. "You?" She couldn't help but gawk. "You? Discombobulated? Tell me it isn't so," she said, but it was a sly thing, all barely held back laughter and dancing eyes, and Cassandra growled playfully as she gathered Anira up against her chest.  
  
"Strange as it may seem," Cassandra murmured, pressing kisses against Anira's throat that made her forget how to speak entirely, which was something of a mercy, as Cassandra seemed so much better at it just now, "I do have my moments. Just now, for instance,"  
  
She didn't quite meet Cassandra's eyes when Cassandra first reached for her, trying to smother down the rush of... anticipatory discomfort would be the best way to put it, disappointment the worst. It wouldn't be Cassandra's fault, no more than it had ever been anyone's fault. Sex just had never felt the way everyone had always assured her it was supposed to, the way Varric's books had assured her, the way her parents had, the keeper. Anyone and everyone had had their opinions that it was this beautiful, marvelous, world shattering event, but in her experience, it was short and messy and unsatisfying. She'd always tried her best to look like she was having as good a time as her partners seemed to be having, but...

So it was with no small amount of surprise that Anira found herself arching off of Cassandra's coat with a small, wavering sigh when Cassandra's palms molded to her sides and up to her breasts, almost but not quite touching areas that she was suddenly very intensely interested in being touched. Now. Now would be good.  
  
Cassandra laughed again, and it was only just then that Anira realized she'd said that last part aloud. "If we are QUITE done enjoying my death and dishonor," she said with a quirk of much scarred lips that told Cassandra that the only heat behind her words was the very pleasant kind, "maybe we can get to the part where we are both naked. I always find having no clothes on either makes things much better or much, much more embarrassing. Maybe both." She was giddy, didn't even know what she was saying, except that she felt both light as air and heavy, waiting for the fall that wasn't coming.  
  
And then it did.  
  
"What is the rush?" Cassandra asked, ducking her head so that that little curl fell low over her temple in the way that turned Anira's world upside down with a quiet, quiet flip all of its own. What did she mean? Usually by this time clothes were decorating bushes, but here Cassandra was, reclining back against the ground and tugging Anira into her lap, her back to Cass's chest.  
  
Anira instantly started to wriggle, wanting to see Cassandra, but Cassandra pressed a kiss against Anira's head and asked her quietly to try it, just this once. Maybe it was the shock of it, or the tremble in Cassandra's voice, but Anira quieted and let Cassandra take up her hands and use them to explore Anira's body, sliding over cloth and leather in circluar patterns that felt strange at first, but that very quickly made her feel warm all over.  
  
Anira twisted sinuously against Cassandra, letting out a low whimper as their fingers met and found her nipple over top of her shirt, and started to circle round and round it in maddening patterns. "Cassy," she gasped between ragged attempts for air, "you are -ah!- trying very hard to make me forget about our clothes."  
  
"How did you know?" Cassandra said lowly right against the point of her ear, and bit gently, making Anira stiffen with a ragged cry just as her and Cassandra's left hands found their way beneath her trousers.  
  
This was more in line with what she'd expected, or so she'd thought. What she had in no way expected was the first tingling rush of sensation when their hands found a place between her legs that had indeed been touched before, but not like this, never by Cassandra. And somewhere between Cassandra removing her coat and watching the movement of the muscles on her back as she removed her customary dark top, Anira found herself focused rather more intently on the moment than she ever had with previous partners. Very Intently. Very.  
  
She reached for Cassandra, though her hands stopped halfway there, hovering uncertainly between top and bottom. As had been thoroughly shown to her just now, everything that she had known about sex was laughably wrong, hilariously wrong, so how could she trust her own instincts in light of that? What if she did it wrong? What if she hurt Cassandra? The idea of that made her insides turn to water. "What am I supposed to do?" She asked, feeling suddenly very young and very inexperienced, she who was older than Cassandra by three months and four days, though those particular butterflies eased when Cassandra laughed low in her chest and eased Anira back upon the coat she had so recently shed, and. Oh. Yes, she could see the benefits of this position, yes.

"You aren't SUPPOSED to do anything but move in a way that feels good for you and for me," Cassandra said somewhere north of her chest, which was almost but not entirely as interesting as the planes of her muscled stomach, which Anira was currently occupied exploring with hands and mouth and tongue. Cassandra seemed to forgive her for not paying attention, because the next thing she knew Cassandra guided their joined hands to the warm place between Cassandra's legs, up to the bundle of nerves that made Cassandra sink against her with a throaty noise that did very interesting things to Anira's insides. She stared at Cassandra, enraptured. All of the moisture seemed to have left her mouth and traveled to altogether different places, because when Cassandra's free hand made its way back between her legs she fair leaped up off the ground like she'd been shot through with a bolt of lightning. And it felt like she had. Then again, this time as Cassandra dipped folded fingers inside her in a way that made her head loll back on her shoulders.

Ordinarily, this would be the time where Anira would blush and stutter on reading Varric's books aloud, but just now she found she didn't care one bit for anything but moving and moving and moving again, moaning into Cassandra's mouth and pressing up into touch and heat and pressure. Cassandra's breasts pressed against hers, fitting together like a puzzle that she had been seeking her whole life, longer. Dizzied, Anira opened eyes she hadn't realized had fallen shut to find Cassandra looking back at her with a radiant smile.

Later, Anira thought that this would have been a perfect opportunity to say something suave and sweep Cassandra (further) off of her feet, but she was rather preoccupied at the time with the coils of warmth that had been steadily expanding at the base of her spine that chose that precise moment to come unwound. Anira's spine bowed with a sudden fire that flared up, not in her hands, but in her voice, her every vein. Her heels scrabbled at Cassandra's coat as she let out high, artless cries with every shuddering spasm that wracked her from crown to toe, wrung her like a dog with a dishcloth until she was empty and echoing and dazed on Cassandra's coat, blinking up at her with something akin to wonder.

She realized only belatedly that her own fingers had stopped moving on Cassandra around the time that she realized that she'd left a rather large wet spot on the prettiest part of Cassandra's coat, and leaped up, cheeks grown darker with color. "Oh- oh no, I- I am so sorry, Cassy, I'll fix it! I'll fix it and everything will be fine!" She babbled, wringing her hands. It didn't occur to her what she must sound like until she saw Cassandra's face, but by then it was too late.

"You don't have to- Don't worry about it. It is of no importance. I mean to say," Cassandra said slowly, "that I would understand if you-" Now it was Cassandra's turn to hesitate, words dying in her throat as she reached for them.

Anira couldn't bear to see that uncertainty tucked in the corner of Cassandra's mouth like a secret, and reached out to take hold of Cassandra's hands. She scattered swift kisses across her knuckles, across every scar and freckle, every perfect imperfection. "Of course I will," Anira whispered against Cassandra's skin, shivering when Cassandra eased out the breath she'd been holding, when she tugged a hand free and walked her fingertips up and down Anira's sides. "I will stay and stay and stay, as long as you wish me to. We..." She sighed, and Cassandra finished the sentence against her lips as she drew Anira, her lover, closer.

"Together. As we were always meant to be."


End file.
